Comicon Day Two

Another day, another load of cool Comicon business. Some have been commenting that this year’s been an anticlimax in terms of news, and perhaps it has since so much was leaked beforehand, but I’ve found this year’s con particularly exciting. Maybe I’m just paying even closer attention than in previous years. Anyway, here’s the skinny:

The Dark Knight teaser debuted at the Why So Serious site, coinciding with an event outside the Comicon hall where fans were made up in Joker makeup as part of the film’s viral marketing. A Gotham City Police Department Report on the site states that the gathering was a rally for the Joker to gather troops, but that he was killed shortly beforehand. Another version of the report available during the countdown featured photos of a differently made-up Heath Ledger looking fairly dead in a ditch. Where does this come in the film’s storyline? Does the incident turn bank-robbing Joker into the homicidal psychopath we best know him as?

Photos of the ‘troops’ and their ‘aliases’ can be seen on the site. A skywriting plane even drew a phone number in the air above the Con, which began an hours-long information treasure hunt for the gathered fans. Sounded like fun, and the initiative is laudable, marking perhaps the first large-scale viral marketing campaign a film has undertaken (correct me if ‘m wrong). But some are miffed that the film didn’t make an actual panel appearance at Comicon; not even the trailer was shown for the gathered fans. Some are suspicious following Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan’s borderline contemptuous taped message at the 2004 con, but hopefully the approach is deliberate rather than aloof on the part of the director and cast. Having the viral stuff speak for the film rather than up-front statements is certainly a more innovative and mysterious strategy. And we were once again reminded that the Joker will return in December…

The teaser itself was the very definition of the word, with no actual footage. Instead, the gradually illuminated new Bat-logo was accompanied by a new voiceover by Bale and Michael Caine about the mob turning to a new, bizarre force in the wake of Begins. Thankfully at the end we hear Ledger in character for the first time, and the logo explodes sending a Joker playing card with it. Ledger sounds promising if weird – he’s never done a manic performance like this before, and I can almost hear him straining against his usually reserved demeanour. But I refuse to conclude anything until the end credits roll. It is a great cackle.

An easy YouTube copy can be seen here, or a Quicktime version can be downloaded at whysoserious.com. Don’t bother with the in-browser version at that site – too jerky.

Simultaneously, a new still from the film was released featuring Ledger and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, a snippet of which you can see above. It’s pretty snazzy. Nice to see he’s in the trademark purple.



OK, other stuff. Charles de Lauzirika can be heard speaking at the DVD Producers Panel about Twin Peaks, and the mention of hours and hours of newly created and discovered extras is tantalising. The recording also includes a clip from his feature-length doco, and it sounds just like the contextual retrospective I’ve been longing for. Yes! We’re even getting the hallowed Georgia Coffee commercials (though, having now seen them on YouTube, I fail to see what the fuss is about). Thanks to Pete Vilmur at the Dugpa forums for uploading his recording.



The trailer shown at the Con for the Dangerous Days doco is now online at Yahoo, and includes a snippet of an Olmos deleted scene and a great final note from Harrison Ford. It looks immensely interesting. Yahoo also has the remastered Zhora chase sequence, but I’m going to wait until the DVD for that and the other new clips they have.

Plus, the official site for the release has gone live. Most of it hasn’t opened, but there are some bitchin’ wallpapers.



Bits and bobs from the Watchmen panel with Zack Snyder and actors Malin Akerman and Jackie Earle Haley (both of whom sadly received no questions):

- The release date is March 6, 2009. Warner are obviously hoping for a repeat of 300. They are also firmly behind the R-rating, which also partially explains that date.

- Additionally, Warner support the decision to set the film in 1985 and in the midst of the Cold War. I love that choice.

- Snyder is trying to secure the money to shoot the Tales from the Black Freighter pirate comic interludes for the DVD. Great effort, but I fail to see the point if they’re not interspersed with the main narrative, and they would likely be too cumbersome within the film anyway.

- Also, CHUD sorta reports that 300 star Gerald Butler will end up in the film after all... sorta – he may well be playing the vengeful castaway from Black Freighter. Good casting.

- Dr. Manhattan will be achieved with a motion-captured Billy Crudup, with the actor appearing on-screen normally for the flashback sequences.

- Thankfully, the film will not be shot 300-style against green-screens. A New York set is being built on a backlot in Vancouver, although Snyder will naturally be using green-screen for the Mars and Antarctica sequences. In a cool touch, he said that we should refer to Seven more than Sin City for clues about the visual style. He also plans to use the comics panels a lot to frame shots.

- Snyder rationalised his decision to cast younger actors as he will be able to age them up and down with makeup and effects to accommodate the story’s broad timeline. He cited Patrick Wilson as an example, that he will look older in most scenes than he does in real life. Good news.
He described the casting as ‘perfect’. He’s relieved that the studio allowed him to cast ‘real actors’ instead of stars, and said that he cited 300 to them as justification. That’s either spin or Akerman is genuinely accomplished, which will be a relief.

- Stephen McHattie (300, The Fountain, A History of Violence) will play Hollis Mason. Great visual match.

- Snyder talks regularly with Dave Gibbons, who has read the script and is behind the project. He also spoke of Alan Moore’s non-involvement: he holds out no hope that Moore will ever support a film version, but respects his stance.
Gibbons also drew a Comicon exclusive poster. Find that here along with pictures from the panel.

- The official site has gone live. Only a synopsis and the cast there at the moment, though.



Warren Ellis is taking over from Joss Whedon on Astonishing X-Men!! I still love the guy, but Whedon’s run has been really underwhelming, so hearing that Ellis is taking over is tremendous news. The guy’s a sardonic idea factory and I never thought I’d see him on the X-Men given his very public disdain for the superhero genre, although it’s not as surprising as it once would have been given his other recent work at Marvel (Newuniveral and Nextwave sound brilliant). He’s on for at least twenty-four issues (!) with big new artist Simone Bianchi.



Edward Norton and Liv Tyler appeared at the Incredible Hulk panel, and Norton surprised everyone by being very savvy about the Hulk, praising the TV show and citing the Bruce Jones comics run and Hulk: Gray. The most startling news is that Norton appears to have done a rewrite of Zak Penn’s script! No word on how extensive that is, but he came in suggesting ideas as a fan, which led to a suggestion that he take a shot at the script. This may well have been a condition of him to sign on the dotted line. Hopefully this is only good news – it’s certainly consistent with Norton’s track record of taking a, um, firm hand in the creative side of his movies.



Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and designer Stan Winston debuted footage from Iron Man at the Marvel Movies panel. Given that virtually everything from the Con has appeared online, don’t be surprised it this does. I can’t wait to get a look at what Favreau and Downey have been up to, especially since the cinematographer is Matthew Libatique, who shot, nay, painted The Fountain.



Joe Madureira’s huge gatefold cover for The Ultimates 3 can be seen here. His run with writer Jeph Loeb will start in December, though sadly the plan for Mad to do volume 3 and Ed McGuinness to do 4 has been scrapped. Instead, each will be pencilling one half of volume 3. It’s still a tantalising project, given the courageously different choice of artists.



Contrary to my previous comment to Alicia, Disney will be filming all seven Narnia novels at the rate of one a year. Given that the franchise’s financial longevity has not yet been proven, it’s a bold commitment. They can always renege, though.



Everyone’s returning to their shows! Lucy Lawless will be back on Battlestar Galactica next season for at least two episodes.

Also, actor Richard Hatch revealed that Ron Moore was seeking a two-year commitment from SciFi for Battlestar, but they couldn’t deliver one. To be on the safe side, he opted to resolve the story in the one season he was guaranteed. Makes sense.



Kevin Smith will be writing and directing the first episode of Heroes: Origins, the four-episode anthology series that will follow the main show's second season finale in May. Each episode will introduce a new superpowered character, and the audience can vote on which one will be included in the third season cast. At the panel, Smith once again plumbed the same damn well by saying that Hiro and Ando must be gay, right? Jesus….



Neil Gaiman says that Miracleman is sadly still embroiled in legal woes, and that every time he thinks they’re nearly resolved, a new snag reveals itself. He still wants to finish his storyline though, which is nice to hear. He also said that Terry Gilliam can now film Good Omens (the novel Gaiman wrote with Terry Pratchett) for $17 million, but still no studio will give him the money. It’s a shame. If Johnny Depp attaches himself as he unofficially did way back when, I’m sure the money would appear.



Richard Kelly unveiled the poster for Southland Tales at Comicon, adorned with its shiny new release date of November 9. It’s a nice piece of art – note that "Dwayne Johnson" is The Rock. He’s apparently distancing himself from his wrestling persona, which is a good move really, since he can actually act.

CHUD also have a great exclusive interview with Kelly. I’m pleased that with the new visual effects money and the Box deal, Kelly’s back in the fast lane (for the first time really – he’s been dicked around ever since he shot Donnie Darko). I hope Southland surprises people and that it delivers on its own ambition, especially after all this time. A trailer is forthcoming.



The 5-minute Comicon preview of The Golden Compass – the first adaptation of Philip Pullman’s distinctive fantasy trilogy– is now online. Don’t watch it if you haven’t read the book (known in Britain and Australia as Northern Lights) though, as it gives away most of the story beats. If you have though, take a look – it’s quite dazzling, and Dakota Blue Richards is uncannily Lyra-like.



Joss Whedon has put Ripper back on the front-burner! He’s putting together the Buffy spin-off Giles TV movie with an eye to the BBC broadcasting it in 2008. It’s not yet confirmed, but it has a good chance of happening. No word on whether it’s intended as a one-off or a pilot for an ongoing series. Regardless, the Buffyverse may well be back, people.



Whedon is also writing a horror script with Buffy and Cloverfield writer Drew Goddard. He claims that Cabin in the Woods will be “the horror movie to end all horror movies… literally”, whatever that means.



Johnny Depp is starring in a film version of long-running 60s vampire TV show Dark Shadows. Uh, okay...



Steven Spielberg and the cast’s rather nice live message to Comicon via satellite from the Indy 4 set can be seen here.



Frank Miller says that the reason for the Sin City 2 delay is the Weinsteins. Didn’t know that, but it’s not a surprise.



Universal have switched the release date of The Mummy 3 and Hellboy 2, with the latter now bowing in the coveted early July time period. A vote of confidence, perhaps? We’re told that the sequel is much more in the vein of Pan’s Labyrinth than the original, after all…



The poster for Whiteout, the adaptation of Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber’s much-loved graphic novel about a murder in Antarctica. Clever tagline that combines cliché and wit. The poster actually recreates Frank Miller’s cover to the first issue – even his pencil strokes are preserved in that photography. Hollywood loves Miller.



And that’s it for Saturday at Comicon. Last day tomorrow, although the news will likely be less. Gawd, like that news retrospective, this has turned into a far bigger endeavour than I expected. I hoped it stimulated and entertained then, and that my square eyes were not for naught.

Comicon Day One and other bits

Wow, I’ve been ODing on amazing news today. It’s been one thing after another. And Day One of Comicon isn’t even over yet! Click below for a quite ridiculous amount of exciting info.

The full Blade Runner specs are here, and they’re almost identical to the dreamy list prematurely unveiled by EzyDVD a couple of months ago. Here’s the cream of the crop:

- Five cuts of the film: the 1982 theatrical cut, the more violent international cut, the 1992 Director’s Cut, Ridley Scott’s new Final Cut, and the infamous workprint whose unearthing led to the creation of the DC.

- Three commentary tracks on the Final Cut with Ridley Scott, the screenwriters, and design personnel. No actors, sadly.

- A 3 and a half hour Charles de Lauzirika documentary on the film, Dangerous Days, featuring interviews with the entire cast, including Harrison Ford.

- 47 minutes of newly discovered deleted scenes (holy shit!!!)

- Featurettes on Philip K Dick

- And loads more.

The set will be available in three versions: a 2-disc set containing the Final Cut, the commentaries, and Dangerous Days; a 4-disc set that adds a disc of three other cuts and a disc of miscellaneous wondrousness; and a 5-disc briefcase set adding the workprint and a doco on the various cuts.

The only downside of these releases is that the workprint is only available in an edition that costs twice as much as the 4-disc one, for which you get a spinner model and other collectible crud in a Deckard briefcase/toybox. Collector photos and miniatures and all that rubbish bore me silly. It’s a shame that fans have to spend so much to get the whole lot, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I can live without the workprint anyway. Also, the acclaimed Channel 4 doco On the Edge of Blade Runner was going to be included, but now isn’t, sadly. But since we’re getting the massive Dangerous Days, it would be spoiled to complain. I was going to say that it’s on Youtube anyway, but I just checked and found that Warner Bros have requested its removal. Maybe it’ll be snuck on to the DVD after all.

Against all expectations, de Lauzirika revealed that his Twin Peaks: The Complete Series box set will include deleted scenes from both seasons of the show!!! AND a feature-length documentary called Secrets from Another Place: Creating Twin Peaks!!! I’ve longed for a doco on the making of this seminal show but never thought a studio would bother, yet they have! And it’s a de Lauzirika production too. Sweet merciful Zeus, I’m happy.

The set will also include:

- a roundtable discussion with David Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan, Madchen Amick, and a mystery person not yet revealed.

- Richard Beymer’s glorious photographs from the final day of shooting.

- Both the TV and European versions of the pilot, fully remastered.

- Interviews with even more cast and crew as yet unfeatured on the DVDs, including Joan Chen, Lynch, Angelo Badalamenti, and perhaps more, and more footage of the interviewees already showcased.

- And other extras yet to be announced. A full spec list has not yet been seen, but de Lauzirika said “we got away with murder” in terms of what they were able to squeeze on. Oh, at last!

In other very surprising Peaks news, illustrator Matt Haley revealed in an interview that he mounted a project to tell the third season of Twin Peaks in comic book form! He had Mark Frost on board, Fire Walk with Me co-writer Robert Engels set to write, the studio in agreement, a publisher interested, and the promise of packaging the story with the upcoming DVD box set. But then Lynch put a stop to it! Who knows how it would have it turned out, but I hope you knew what you were doing, David, because this could have been awesome!

Take a look at this delicious piece of art by Haley before the project was shut down. The image of Cooper and his other work, as seen in the above interview, show how superb he is at capturing likenesses. Dugpa confirmed the project as legit, and that he was asked not to mention it and chose not to when it fell through. Wow, what could have been….

Harold Perrineau appeared in person at Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s Lost panel – no wonder they wanted to reveal his return there – and confirmed that Michael is back as a regular cast member! Great news. He’s got quite an uphill battle with the other castaways. I won’t mention their comments about the game-changing season finale, knowing that some readers haven’t seen the whole third season yet. Suffice to say, it was good news. Cool stuff unrelated to that is that Libby’s story will be tackled in season four, and Rousseau will be getting a flashback and perhaps playing a bigger role in the story.

Zachary Quinto is officially Spock in the new Star Trek movie, although Leonard Nimoy will play him too! Although he’s been retired from acting for years and hasn’t played Spock since 1991, Nimoy has returned – presumably for framing scenes – based on JJ Abrams being at the helm and the strength of the script, which has been garnering raves. Kirk has not yet been cast, and Shatner will be included if a suitable way can be found to do so.

Someone I spoke to today made the good point that Spock’s scenes could be set post-Next Generation, since Spock is still alive in that time and it would account for Nimoy’s aging. Since Kirk died in Generations, he could logically not be included in Nimoy’s scenes. Interesting…

Oh, and a new poster was displayed. Nothing special, but that familiar font confirms along with Nimoy’s participation that this will have greater ties to the original incarnation of the franchise than previously assumed.

Another viral marketing site for The Dark Knight has gone live, featuring a rather cool recruitment poster by the Joker and a countdown from ten hours, as of this writing, that allegedly coincides with Warner Bros. Comicon panel, although Dark Knight has put off showing its wares until next month’s Wizard World Chicago con. Is it the debut of the trailer, or is something unexpected happening at the panel? Or will the site itself reveal something?

The poster’s statement ends with the following: “Bring your sense of humour, but don’t worry – we’ll supply the smile.” In light of the Ledger photo released a while back, that’s wonderfully creepy.

As rumoured, Karen Allen is returning as Marion Ravenwood for Indiana Jones 4. A picture of her and Spielberg on set has been released, and she looks terrific, like only a few years have passed since Raiders. Coming full circle does seem to be the order of the day.

There’s been surprisingly little interesting comics news actually. This is the first year where I’ve been following Comicon coverage for the TV and film side rather than the comics. That event’s metamorphosing more and more every year.

Check back over the weekend for more goss, and get keen for the Dark Knight teaser! A crappy copy has already been leaked to YouTube, but don’t lower yourself to that shite. A nice Quicktime version should be out on Saturday, Australian time, I predict.

And so it begins...

Perhaps wanting the trades to still get their exclusives just as fans are queuing up for the relevant panels, studios have started releasing some of the big Comicon news.

- the Watchmen cast has been announced, and the fansites were right on the money, although one name is new:
Rorschach - Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children)
Nite-Owl - Patrick Wilson (Little Children, Hard Candy)
Dr Manhattan - Billy Crudup (Almost Famous)
Laurie Juspeczyk - Malin Akerman (uh... see other posts)
Ozymandias - Matthew Goode (Match Point)
The Comedian - Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey's Anatomy, Supernatural)
Fairly good choices, none of which scream "WRONG!" except for the big question mark of Malin Akerman and to a lesser extent Morgan and Goode. Here's hoping that Snyder is creatively happy with these choices.

- although exact specs aren't yet out, the Blade Runner Final Cut DVDs have essentially been announced, appearing in December in 2-, 4-, and 5-disc editions preceded by a Venice Film Festival berth in September and a limited US theatrical release in October (please go international, please go international...). There's a terrific article summing up the intent of the project at Variety and some likely cover art for the three editions at Zona DVD (the Variety article gives us a look at the innards too). Full specs will hopefully be released after today's panel.

- Harold Perrineau is confirmed as returning to Lost next season as Michael! No word on whether he'll be regular or doing guest spots, but that may emerge at today's Lost panel. It only came out early because TV critics at press tour were pissed off that a fan convention was getting all the news and they got nothing. Apparently the ABC President called Damon Lindelof to ask if he could tell them and he got the OK. Unexpected power dynamic there, unless it's just spin.

- Zachary Quinto seems sewn up as Spock in Star Trek XI. Hate to be harsh, but casting a TV actor in a major role in what is supposed to be the rebirth of a TV-based franchise in movie-form doesn't exactly send the right message. And just because he looks a little like Nimoy doesn't mean he should get the part. Hell, if you're daring enough to recast those characters for the first time you might as well be adventurous - you'll be attracting fan bile whatever you do.

- talk of the devil, they've released a Beowulf trailer! I hope this becomes more than a feature-length video game cut scene, as certain portions of this trailer unfortunately indicate. Other parts are very impressive though.

Stay tuned for more.

San Diego Comicon 2007

For those who may not know, the San Diego Comicon has not only been the premier comic convention for the last thirty years - and thus home to most of the major announcements by comic companies for the year - but it has recently metamorphosed into a mass pop culture expo, with studios debuting footage from upcoming geek-oriented films and holding panels with major stars and directors. Such is the influence of Comicon in publicity terms – thanks to the disseminating power of the Internet – that even decidedly non-geek films are setting up shop there. Geeks are indeed taking over the world.

Granted, there’s only so much that one can experience vicariously about Comicon, but the news that comes out of it and the footage that often shows up online shortly after means that the weekend is an international hub for mainstream film news that substitutes adequately for not hearing it firsthand. This year in particular looks to be very interesting. Here’s some of the highlights that we can expect to hear about between this Friday and Monday (Australian time).

- The Watchmen panel with director Zack Snyder should at the very least reveal the cast, perhaps even in person, and hopefully some other choice morsels.

- The Dark Knight teaser debuts, and should be released online shortly thereafter.

- A Blade Runner panel with director Ridley Scott, Sean Young and other actors, and DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika! The full specs should undoubtedly be unveiled here, along with some other choice goodies. Designer Syd Mead will be holding his own panel about his work on the film, moderated by Paul M. Sammon, author of the indispensable Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, which will be getting a most welcome second edition later this year to cover The Final Cut and new interviews Sammon has conducted with Ridley Scott and even Harrison Ford! I am so psyched for this DVD set that I can scarcely draw breath.

- Lauzirika will also appear at the annual Digital Bits DVD Producers panel, where he will also be showing some footage from the upcoming Twin Peaks: The Complete Series box set and hopefully reveal the specs and other info.

- The first Iron Man footage should be seen at a panel fronted by director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. If the footage blows the roof off, don’t be surprised to see it surface online via the studio soon after, as happened with X-Men 2 in 2002.

- I’d be surprised if any Incredible Hulk footage is screened as filming has barely begun, but the panel will not only include director Louis Leterrier, but even stars Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, and William Hurt! With that star wattage I would be surprised if something wasn’t shown….

- Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary will reveal the first footage seen anywhere of Robert Zemeckis’s motion-captured Beowulf, to be released in November. I’m stunned that there hasn’t been a trailer for this yet. Hell, the first two stills only came out today.

- Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse will discuss the mind-bending third season finale of Lost for the first time since it aired and also talk up season four.

- The word is that Pixar will announce the long-awaited DVD of its short films at Comicon.

- A Battlestar Galactica panel with Ron Moore, David Eick, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, and Tricia Helfer. You know it’ll be good.

- Plus the usual delicious comics announcements and who knows what else. Left-field news is common at Comicon.

Looking through the schedule, I’m agog at how many spectacularly interesting panels there are on animation and the craft of comics and graphic novels, particularly on the recent explosion of interest in the bookstore market. I reckon my first trip to America, whenever it comes, would do well to occur in July….

News, news, and additional news

The latest film and TV news for y'all, as I actually promised and am living up to. Will wonders never cease!

- Rumours abound of a sequel to Pixar’s Cars. Please, NO! Cars was their first genuinely average film, so please don’t subject us to more. Continue cranking out original concepts for us in defiance of Hollywood rules, I implore you!

- The teaser trailer for The Dark Knight is announced as debuting before The Simpsons Movie, with a probable screening at Warner Bros’ panel at Comicon on the same day. OH YES!!!

- Michael Moore suggests that his next documentary will take on right-wing Christian anti-gay nutjobs – YEAH!!!

- David Duchovny again mentions that a new X-Files movie is forthcoming. He is supposedly receiving a script next month and filming will begin in November for a summer 2008 release – woah! If true, that’s fairly late to announce a summer release date in this day and age. And I maintain that any new X-Files movie will be a big flop. I honestly can’t see why Fox would greenlight it. Even the original, released at the height of X-Files fever, only grossed $137 million. Maybe it’ll be lower-budget or something so that it can turn a profit. Still, I’ll be amazed if this even gets made.

- A Young Ace Ventura movie has been announced. Oh please GOD!

- Director of South African flick Tsotsi and the upcoming Rendition, Gavin Hood, is announced as director of the Wolverine solo film. Bizarre choice, but an encouraging one, as Fox finally remembers that going to a proper filmmaker pays the best dividends for superhero flicks (except for Superman Returns).

- Alex Proyas is reportedly being courted for a Silver Surfer solo flick. Is this just old word that predates FF2’s mediocre box-office performance and has only now surfaced, or is this still a possibility? I’d be very surprised if Proyas did another Fox film after complaining bitterly about his experience with them making I, Robot.

- In other Proyas news, the long-mooted Dark City Director’s Cut is still coming, with a reportedly greater overhaul than anyone expected, including new effects. Hmm...

- Knocked Up star and Judd Apatow rep player Seth Rogen is announced as writer of The Green Hornet with partner Evan Goldberg, which will adapt of the radio series and TV show that starred a then-unknown Bruce Lee. Kevin Smith was previously attached but backed out in fear of the massive directorial challenge. Rogen may even star as the Hornet, and he wants Kung Fu Hustle director and star Stephen Chow to appear as Kato. What a strange project.

- Avi Arad confirms that Hilary Swank and Samuel L. Jackson are cameoing in Iron Man, lamenting that the secret is out, particularly since Jackson’s appearance as Nick Fury was supposed to be “the biggest secret of all”. While it will only get fanboys and audiences more pumped for the film, it’s a shame that we couldn’t have found out on screen as we were supposed to.

- Matt Damon says that he’s not up for the Kirk role in Star Trek XI, and that they are casting younger, around 20-ish.

- Several rock-solid Watchmen rumours appear in quick succession, including Jackie Earle Haley confirmed as Rorschach (great choice), Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, and the relatively unknown Malin Akerman as Laurie, known only for a couple of token blonde roles in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Entourage. The word is that Zack Snyder has been forced to accept a reduced budget, which perhaps priced Jude Law out of the film (although he’s such a huge fan that I’d have thought he’d do it for virtually nothing – the guy even has a Rorschach tattoo). Snyder’s pledged to use the limitation as an asset to force him to be more creative, but the casting of Akerman is a little concerning. She hasn’t shown any particular aptitude in her roles thus far. Did she sufficiently wow Snyder in her audition that he’d be comfortably pairing her with Crudup and Wilson? Or has he been forced to eat studio shit? Regardless, we’ll know for sure at Comicon, although if they are true, all the major casting has now been leaked. Hopefully the panel will yield some new info though.

- Rome’s Ray Stevenson is pseudo-announced by the very-reliable Latino Review as the new Frank Castle in the Punisher sequel (they also broke the Akerman story and other sites are taking both stories as rote). Stevenson’s a great choice, and suits Castle’s age and demeanour far more than Thomas Jane. Hopefully director Lexi Alexander (Green St Hooligans) will deliver a more satisfying instalment than the panned original. I wonder if this one will ignore the first film like The Incredible Hulk is….

- Todd McFarlane continues to talk up a new Spawn film, hinting that he’ll even finance it himself if need be. That may actually get it released, as a studio could acquire it for a song, since they certainly won’t develop one on their own. Superheroes may be huge at the moment, but Spawn is utterly a product of the 90s. Despite a recent Vertigo-esque revamp of the comic that has drawn good reviews, the world has largely moved on.

- Disturbia director DJ Caruso and writer Carl Ellsworth are announced as helming a film version of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s stunning Vertigo series Y: The Last Man for New Line. Considering that Disturbia star Shia LaBeouf has been publicly keen on the role, this news joins quite a few dots. Don’t be surprised if LaBeouf is announced as the star. There could be worse Yoricks, and he’s got charisma to spare. If Yorick’s distinctive sense of humour is preserved in the script, he could be ideal.

- Oh my god!!! Southland Tales has a release date! It’ll bow on November 9. Who knows how it’ll do, but at least it’s coming out. A trailer should be here soon.

- Check out the spectacular 3:10 to Yuma poster. In an age of one-sheets that merely group headshots together, it’s refreshing to see such an elegantly designed piece of promotion.

- After the commercial flop of Equilibrium and the every-aspect-flop of Ultraviolet, Kurt Wimmer could be crawling back with the sale of a spec script to Columbia with Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, the upcoming Reservation Road) in talks to direct and Tom Cruise up for starring. Edwin A. Salt is about a CIA operative accused of being a Russian sleeper agent by a defector.

- Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie begins filming in Berlin, and my colossal scepticism about Tom Cruise playing this part was alleviated significantly by this comparison shot of the real Von Stauffenberg and Cruise in the hair and makeup he’ll wear for filming. Spooky, huh? If he can do a decent accent this might not be so inappropriate. The release date is confirmed as August 8, 2008.

- HBO renews Big Love for a third season. No word yet on John from Cincinnati, which started a week earlier…

- Another week, another potential Ridley Scott project. Scott Free Productions acquires the rights to a trilogy of vampire novels by Jordan Ainsley that begins with The Passage. This guy sold the trilogy to Ballantine for $3.75 million based solely on a 400-page partial manuscript and an outline. The first book doesn’t even come out until summer 2009. The film rights are already sold. Bastard….

- Naomi Watts joins Clive Owen on Tom Tykwer’s The International.

- In a charming display of consumer contempt, Warner Home Video announces on the bare-bones Zodiac DVD that a 2-disc director’s cut with numerous special features will be released in 2008. Bet everyone who bought that felt VERY grateful.

News Retrospective, Part Three

And to bring us right up to the present day, the July news bits and the word on Deadwood (well, lack thereof, to be accurate)

July

- Peter Berg’s Will Smith superhero flick Tonight, He Comes is renamed John Hancock. Boooooooring.

- Bob Hoskins lets the cat out of the bag and reveals that he’ll be making a motion-captured A Christmas Carol with Robert Zemeckis directing and Jim Carrey as Scrooge. The trades confirm it a few days later, and that Carrey will also play the three ghosts, Hanks-in-Polar Express style. Zemeckis loves him some motion capture, and Carrey could use a hit.

- A Sex and the City movie is actually being made. I was about to muse whether anyone still cared, but on second thoughts, I know plenty do.

- Paramount Pictures releases a mysterious trailer before Transformers that, a few weeks beforehand, AICN’s Moriarty reveals will be for an out-of-nowhere project produced by JJ Abrams tentatively called Cloverfield, which will be a moderately budgeted monster movie shot with camcorders from the perspective of civilians. Viral marketing websites pop up too, but as of this writing even the title isn’t confirmed, although it may be simply the film’s release date – 1-18-08. Rumours abound that the film is a new Godzilla film, a take on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, or something else entirely. Some even speculate it’s a Lost spin-off! (but the two projects are from different studios, so this is about as likely as the theory that Lost is a sequel to Stephen King’s The Stand). The trailer has finally seen an official release online, and it’s a great piece. The film will be directed by Abrams’s Felicity co-creator Matt Reeves and written by stellar Buffy scribe Drew Goddard. The secrecy around this thing was and continues to be impressive. Colour me excited.

- William Shatner reveals that after all the talk of him cameoing in JJ Abrams’s Star Trek film as an older Kirk, Leonard Nimoy will be in fact be appearing and he won’t! Shatner’s said such varying things about this project though that we shouldn’t assume anything until the official announcement.

- CHUD insists that Billy Crudup has been cast as Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. If so, that’s a great, great choice.

- Director Rob Zombie undergoes a week of reshoots for his Halloween remake three months before release. Not a good sign.

- The producers of Bryan Singer’s Harvey Milk biopic, The Mayor of Castro Street – about the first openly gay San Francisco city supervisor – say that it’s next on the director’s schedule after Valkyrie, which calls the status of the Superman sequel into serious doubt.
However, soon after Variety reports that Kevin Spacey intends to return as Lex Luthor for the sequel and that Singer is about to pitch to it to the studio with an eye to filming next year, meaning that he will be potentially shooting three films consecutively. Holy jebus… That’s if Warner greenlights, that is.

- Rob Schmidt, director of Wrong Turn, is attached to make a film version of Stephen King’s novel Insomnia, an interesting gambit since it’s apparently so deeply tied into the Dark Tower series that it won’t stand alone well at all. But that didn’t stop them from filming the Ted Brautigan part of Hearts in Atlantis…

- The trailer for Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, Gone, Baby, Gone, starring brother Casey, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Wire alumni Amy Ryan and Michael K. Williams (Omar!), is released. It’s based on a Dennis (Mystic River) Lehane novel, though be warned that apparently the trailer is quite a misrepresentation of the film, which is much less formulaic than it appears. He may not be a stellar actor, but Affleck’s a smart guy and this is solid material with a great cast, so I’m keen.

- And with a short, fairly unrevealing video, my backflip proceeds by a few more degrees. Just that one glimpse of in-film footage (from the bloody video village, no less!) gives me more hope that Indiana Jones 4 can really work.

- The first footage from the Pegasus-centric Battlestar Galactica TV movie Razor emerges. It’s not much, but I’m tantalised. The Pegasus three-parter ties with the New Caprica arc as Galactica’s high point, so revisiting it – and perhaps finding out some more about the one-year gap in orbit of New Caprica – should be riveting. Razor airs on Sci Fi in November and arrives on DVD on the following day.

- Peter Jackson casts the lead in The Lovely Bones: thirteen-year-old Saoirse Ronan. This project is just rocketing along.

- Zachary Quinto – Sylar from Heroes – is strongly rumoured for the role of Spock in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek film. Not a great choice – I couldn’t believe how un-menacing he was in that pivotal role, even with some meaty bad guy dialogue. And he’s back for season two – enough already!

- Alex Proyas signs to direct Dracula: Year Zero, a project that sounds like a heinous DTV flick but is apparently an excellent script about the life of Vlad the Impaler. Proyas is a solid choice – I just hope he’s given a freer hand than he was on I, Robot so some of his style can make it to the screen.

- At press tour, HBO dodges making any commitments about the Deadwood movies despite hammering from the attending critics. The execs mention the John from Cincinnati factor and that if it’s renewed for a second season, Milch will need to get writing again very soon (gaps between seasons of anything more than a year are apparently not feasible for HBO anymore for some reason). That renewal is clearly up in the air though, given their hypotheticals, the dismal ratings, and the critical response. They eventually concede that the movies have a 50-50 chance. Bloody hell! Just bring the whole damn show back! You could use something that actually rates!
*veers back into the calm realism lane after momentary excursion into flight of implausible fancy*

News Retrospective, Part Two

Here's some May and June newsy goodness for you, soon to be followed by some July stuff and the latest news, which will hopefully include some positive buzz from the HBO press tour day about the Deadwood movies. Fingers crossed.

May

- Hugh Laurie and Chris Evans join Keanu Reeves and the soon-to-be all-surveying Forest Whitaker in David Ayer’s second film, The Night Watchman, a fairly generic sounding police drama that likely has a dazzling script in order to attract such actors. Plus it’s based on an original James Ellroy story, which no doubt got it through a lot of agents’ doors.

- Peter Jackson shops the script for the long-mooted The Lovely Bones, based on Alice Sebold’s novel, which he wrote with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, to all the studios except New Line, due to their current legal imbroglio. Dreamworks soon bites, allegedly at Steven Spielberg’s behest, bestowing Jackson with a $65 million budget - pretty generous for an intimate family drama with a supernatural bent.

- Joe Carnahan claims that Robert Rodriguez has shown him a trailer for Sin City 2, and it blew his mind. Er, but how did it even exist?

- A new Chuck Palahniuk adaptation is finally coming to the screen: Choke, written and directed by first-timer and TV actor Clark Gregg with Sam Rockwell in the lead. Love Rockwell, and Gregg has Palahniuk’s blessing. Let’s see…

- Warner Bros. option Frank Miller’s first solo graphic novel Ronin for the big screen, with Sylvain White attached to direct. Everybody loves Frank.

- An LA Times article reveals why Chopper director Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, is taking so damn long to reach cinemas: internal disputes. The studio expected a more crowd-pleasing Western ala Tombstone, but instead got something akin to the work of Terrence Malick. The article is a little unclear on who Pitt was supporting since it mentions him working on another cut, but a subsequent London Times article suggests that Pitt was behind Dominik, and that the multiple cuts were merely a frantic endeavour to produce several options they could stand before the studio halted funding. Unable to win (in a nice change of pace), the studio has opted for a limited, arthouse release on September 21, perhaps reassured by the prospect that as an investor in the project, Pitt himself stands to lose millions. I hope it pays off, as any Malickian film deserves to be seen as a potential cinematic masterwork.

- John Malkovich is announced as the lead in the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading.

- Confirming the difficult-to-believe prospect of a few months ago, ABC announces that they have set an end-date for Lost, with three more 16-episode seasons to air without repeats each year until 2010. I’ve outlined before how unprecedented and awesome this is, and thank goodness that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse pushed for it (and that their contract re-negotiations came up at just the right time to give them some leverage). It’ll be interesting to see how this affects Lost’s reception in the public eye now that the writers’ have a point to work towards instead of having to dance around the big questions, and most importantly, whether people will come back to the show as a result. The only downside is an excruciating 9-month wait until the next episode after that astonishing, mind-bending cliffhanger.

- George Lucas has the audacity to criticise Spider-Man 3:
“"It's silly. It's a silly movie," he said. "There just isn't much there. Once you take it all apart, there's not much story, is there?"
"People thought 'Star Wars' was silly, too," he added, with a wink. "But it wasn't."
Yes, Spider-Man 3 was a crippling disappointment (more on that soon), but George bloody Lucas has no right calling a movie out for its poor storyline. Nor does the inventor of Jar-Jar Binks and midichlorians get to call another film silly. And this is the man who had veto power over the Indiana Jones 4 script? I shudder to think what that could mean…

- Nicholas Cage will play Al Capone in a prequel to The Untouchables, subtitled Capone Rising. Amazingly, Brian de Palma is returning. Jesus, will sequelitis ever end? As revered as The Untouchables is by film buffs, does it have enough public recognition today to make a wide release profitable? Just bizarre! Later that month Cage will leave due to scheduling conflicts, but not before Gerard Butler signs yet another contract, this time to play the younger version of Sean Connery’s character in the original.

- Robert Rodriguez signs up to direct the remake of Barbarella. Sure, he’s got to curry some commercial favour after Grindhouse, but Barbarella?! Jesus Christ….

- Rachel Weisz does the most sensible and least surprising thing she could by dropping out of The Mummy 3, replaced by Maria Bello. Brendan Fraser’s coming back though. Why do I get the feeling that after Gods and Monsters, that guy not only missed the boat, he didn’t even know it was there – what the hell happened with him?!

- Guy Ritchie tries to atone for Swept Away by returning to safe waters, Kevin Smith-style, with an ensemble caper comedy, although this time it’s for Joel Silver’s Dark Castle division, previously devoted to horror remakes. Odd.

- Point Break 2 is in development. When will it end?!

- Lionsgate takes on Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s pioneering comic strip The Spirit. He mentions wanting Samuel L. Jackson for the villain.

- The first picture of Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight appears at a fake campaign site – www.ibelieveinharveydent.com. Shortly thereafter, another website appears –
www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com - wherein Eckhart’s face has been vandalised and the visitor is invited to enter their email address. They are then sent a code to input on the site via a link in the email, which removes a pixel from the website. The fanboys had a field day that weekend, as the pixels were removed to reveal the first picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker!
Although very close-up, the image is still quite creepy. It was a very clever unveiling, and subsequently confirmed by the studio as legit. Two days later the website disappeared save for an error message. However, when Select All was pressed, pages and pages of black writing was revealed – a long string of ‘ha ha ha!’ in various sizes. Random letters were found strewn throughout, which fans cobbled together as hinting towards more information in December. Solid fanboy marketing there.

- Out of nowhere comes the news that DeNiro and Pacino will be starring in a movie together for the first time since 1995’s Heat and only the second time ever. However, whereas that film featured only one scene between the two (arguably far more powerful as a result), Righteous Kill will pair them up for the whole movie. However, it’s an independently financed generic-sounding cop thriller helmed by the unremarkable Jon Avnet. Save for De Niro acting in Stardust and directing The Good Shepherd and Pacino in Angels in America, I’ve had little faith in their choices in the last several years, so can’t help but assume this will be a misstep. Please prove me wrong though.

- William Gibson’s foundational cyberpunk novel Neuromancer again goes into development as a film, even though a film adaptation's moment has arguably long passed. And Joseph Kahn, director of Ice Cube motorcycle movie Torque, would direct. Oh, please…

- Ain’t It Cool breaks the news that offers have been made to actors for Watchmen. Jude Law has been approached to play Ozymandias (makes sense, pretty happy with it), Patrick Wilson (Little Children, Hard Candy) for Nite-Owl (hmm, quite young), and Keanu Reeves for Dr. Manhattan – say WHAT?!! It’s a fascinating choice, and could work in demeanour if Reeves’s voice weren’t so damn distinctive and riddled with connotations. Hearing that voice come from that serene blue head with those empty white eyes would just be too distracting.

- In news that synchs up with the Dreamworks/Lovely Bones deal, from out of nowhere Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson announce that they are teaming up on three Tintin movies! Spielberg has been looking into this for decades, but with the advances made by WETA and others in realistic performance-oriented CG, he’s shot for an alliance for Jackson to bring Herge’s comics to life with a heightened animated realism – they will allegedly use motion-capture to recreate Herge’s character designs but with detailed, realistic textures. Most impressively, this isn’t just a project that the two men will produce – they will each direct one! This hearkens back to twin titans Spielberg and Lucas uniting for Raiders of the Lost Ark back in 1981. No word on who will go first or which stories will be adapted, but they’re aiming for the first film to come out in 2009, the same year as James Cameron’s similarly endowed Avatar, which WETA will also be creating effects for. Perhaps it will be a banner year for the future of motion pictures, whether we like it or not...

- Matt Damon says that he won’t be making any more Bourne movies. At least someone knows when to quit.

- No Country for Old Men bucks expectations and fails to win any big prizes at Cannes.

- Christopher Nolan will be shooting some Dark Knight sequences with an IMAX camera, the first time a major motion picture has done this due to the costs involved. With more regular movies being exhibited in IMAX cinemas, such a decision is becoming more justifiable.

- Johnny Depp and Michael Mann’s competing biopics about poisoned Russian secret serviceman Alexander Litvenenko may be conflated into one. If that means Depp in a Mann film, then that’s a good result.

- In other Mann news, he is shopping a detective noir written by John Logan with Leonardo DiCaprio in talks to star. Interestingly, it would be set on the MGM backlot while Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were being shot. It sounds delightfully offbeat and evocative, but Mann wants $120 million for production, which is especially doubtful after the failure of Miami Vice. Not much has been mentioned since…

- Friday Night Lights gets renewed for a 22-episode second season. Viva la critical acclaim!

- Paul Newman retires from acting, even nixing A Walk in the Woods, his supposed farewell film with Robert Redford. Alas. Farewell, sir.

June

- Weeks after Lost announces its conclusion, so does Battlestar Galactica. Faced with the very dicey odds of a fifth season due to the middling Sci-Fi Channel ratings, Ron Moore and David Eick have opted to wrap up the story in the 22-episode final season they’d already been given (which includes a 2-hour telemovie set during various eras of the Pegasus). I’m perfectly fine with this decision, although it’ll be such a shame to see Galactica go – it feels like the show only just started. But 22 episodes is a lot, and perhaps Moore can eliminate the stand-alone episodes that he’s never been comfortable with and just tell 22 balls-to-the-wall hours of pure story since the network no longer needs to be appeased. The fact that the two seminal genre shows of our time are getting to go out on their own terms is nothing short of miraculous.

- John from Cincinnati, David Milch’s follow-up to the cancelled Deadwood, premieres and utterly polarises audiences. Critics either hate it or sorta like it, and ratings are disappointing. Deadwood fans are livid that their show was replaced with such a meandering, superficially purposeless exercise. However, the Deadwood situation was far more complicated than that and John was never intended by Milch as a replacement, merely an addition to his HBO line-up. I’ve seen the first five now and while it baffles, I was expecting no less. As a viewing experience, it’s satisfactory, but lacks the inspired, vivid coherency that even the early episodes of Deadwood had to some degree. For now I’ll let Milch do his thing and give him some time, but I’m not as bowled over as I was expecting to be by a mixture of ingredients that sounded so delicious.

- Judd Apatow and Harold Ramis team-up for a Jack Black vehicle, which Apatow will produce and Ramis direct. Hopefully Apatow’s current Midas touch will rehabilitate Ramis’s directorial career.

- Getting on the fantasy bandwagon several years too late, Warner Bros. options Terry Brooks’ Shannara series. Yawn.

- Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard) and D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) are apparent contenders to helm the Wolverine film. Wiseman… my god…

- Tired of the endless speculation, Sean Connery releases a statement saying that he will not appear in Indiana Jones 4 because he’s enjoying retirement too much. John Hurt and Ray Winstone will be in the picture though.

- Gasp?! Terry Gilliam has a new movie in development already?! And it has a big star attached (Heath Ledger) that means it might actually get made? Exclamation! Tom Waits is also involved, possibly as the lead. It’ll be called The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (love it!) and comes from a script that Gilliam recently completed with Brazil co-writer Charles McKeown.

- Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon are reuniting for Imperial Life in the Emerald City, based on The Washington Post’s Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekharan’s account of the monumental stuff-ups in postwar Iraq. Greengrass is one of the most eagerly political filmmakers out there, and this looks set to be incendiary.

- Neil Gaiman intimates that the Death movie – his directorial debut – may finally start filming later this year. Guillermo del Toro is on board as executive producer, and Gaiman will soon spend time on the Hellboy 2 set learning the tricks of the trade from Del Toro. He hints that the main two roles are virtually cast, but no word on when we’ll know (Shia LeBeouf has apparently made a pact with Gaiman to play Sexton, and has been making the rounds with studios to pitch with him). I do so wish that this gets made – seeing Gaiman’s vision unfiltered on celluloid will be an absolute joy, and Death: The High Cost of Living is such a quietly macabre but sweet story. I must have!

- Steve Martin is making The Pink Panther 2. Oh sweet lord, when will this man learn?!

- Peter Jackson signs Rachel Weisz as the spirit girl's mother in The Lovely Bones. I originally thought this would be lower-key, but the $65 million budget suggests otherwise, so signing Weisz isn’t as surprising. Good for Jackson.

- J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) is announced as writer of the Silver Surfer spin-off movie. Although given FF2’s lukewarm box-office, will this even get made?

- Now this sounds awesome: Clive Barker and Guillermo del Toro produce a horror flick about a claymation artist whose creations wreak havoc. Generic horror fluff, yes? But this one stars Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. Curiouser and curioser…

- The modified Batsuit for The Dark Knight is revealed.

- The first image of Harrison Ford in full Indiana Jones 4 regalia is released, taken by Spielberg himself. While in principle a massively uninteresting photo, this first glimpse of Ford fit, ready, and in costume on the set says a lot, and I must say that I felt my scepticism starting to ease. He looks a lot closer to the classic Indy than I had any right to expect, and if that side is taken care of, and there’s a great cast, and Spielberg’s back, and there’s going to be no CGI, then... then… holy shit, this thing could be amazing! Permission to backflip if necessary?

- Hellboy 2: The Golden Army begins production. I can hardly believe it… Blade 2’s Luke Goss plays the villain, and John Hurt is back in a cameo. Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones are all back in a story about a fairy tale-type kingdom intruding on the real world.

- On his website, Paddy Considine announces that a role he was gunning for – Rorschach in Watchmen – has gone to Little Children’s comeback king and Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley. This hasn’t been confirmed since, but if it’s true, it’s a good choice. I haven’t seen Little Children yet, but Haley certainly looks the part. Also, John Cusack says he’d be up for the part of Nite-Owl if Zack Snyder asked him. Cusack’s been a fan-favourite for a while, and while he’s hardly perfect, he’s a better fit than Wilson, age-wise at least.

- Moriarty at AICN follows up on this story, after breaking the last set of Watchmen casting announcements (even though they have yet to be confirmed), and offers more. Thankfully AICN is far more discerning in the rumours it publishes nowadays. Gone are the days when every other day, Ain’t It Cool would proffer a spectacular rumour, many of which were inevitably and understandably proven false. So when they do come out with an exclusive, it should be treated as fairly reliable at the time, even if it doesn’t ultimately come to pass, since these days Moriarty and Harry have a lot of connections in the biz.

- So Mori tells us that Keanu Reeves has priced himself out of the Dr. Manhattan role, and Snyder is now looking at Jason Patric, after considering Billy Crudup. Considering Patric replaced Reeves in Speed 2, history could be repeating itself (that embarrassing stigma could even scare him away from taking the role). Patric doesn’t have Reeves’s baggage, so could easily work. Plus, he hasn’t really had a role that showed his true potential, save for the little-seen Narc. Moriarty also reveals that Ron Perlman and Nathan Fillion (?!) were considered for the Comedian role, but implies that the first choice is now Thomas Jane. Once again, too young.

- Michael Moore’s Sicko gets pirated thanks to an inside job. And he doesn’t mind too much. I guess you can’t if you’re trying to actually influence opinion. More viewers = good.

- Frank Miller is announced as the director of the Clive Owen Philip Marlowe flick Trouble is My Business. Great choice, can’t complain. Love the Miller love in Hollywood.

- Ben Stiller makes a bid for some creative integrity by teaming up with Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) for an upcoming comedy, In Deep. Come on Ben, get it together now.

- Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Monster’s Ball) will direct the next James Bond film with Daniel Craig.

- Tim Burton may have dropped out of the Jim Carrey Ripley’s Believe It or Not movie. Jim can’t catch a break lately.

- Ain’t It Cool reports that Samuel L. Jackson has filmed a cameo in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man movie as Nick Fury, in preparation for a Nick Fury solo film and the beginning of Marvel’s bid to create a shared on-screen universe, since Iron Man is the first of the film that they’ve financed themselves and will be distributing through the major studios. The casting of Jackson comes about because superb Avengers reboot comic The Ultimates recasts Nick Fury as a bald black man blatantly modelled on the actor, and Jackson has expressed interest in playing Fury on screen. We’ll see if it pans out, but don’t be surprised if this stays a secret until release, if a well-kept one.

- Cillian Murphy is spotted on The Dark Knight set, confirming that the Scarecrow will be back in some capacity.

- Laurence Fishburne will write, direct, and star in a film version of Paulo Coelho’s fable novel The Alchemist.

- More Russell/Ridley fun – he’ll join Leonardo DiCaprio in Body of Lies, based on the David Ignatius novel about a CIA agent sent into Jordan. Let me cast the first bet that Crowe will play Judge Holden in Blood Meridian… whether he’s right for the role or not.

- Ryan Gosling will play Rachel Weisz’s husband in The Lovely Bones. This is a great choice by Jackson, and gives the project a nice edge.

- Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla will star Gerard Butler (him again, and more power to him), The Wire’s Idris Elba, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, and Ludacris.

- Richard Kelly’s adaptation of the Richard Matheson SF short story, The Box, gets rolling with Cameron Diaz in the lead. It’d be hilarious if this came out before Southland Tales.

- "New Line Cinema acquires rights to Conan movie, throws development hell party."

- Curb Your Enthusiasm director Robert B. Weide is adapting Toby Young’s memoir How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, about an English guy working at Vanity Fair, for the big one, to star Kirsten Dunst, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges, Danny Huston, Megan Fox, and (drum roll, please)…. Simon Pegg in the lead!!! Pegg and Seth Rogen are the two comedy stars I want to see go far in movies… of those who actually have a chance.

- Major British film blog Film Ick alleges that they’ve received a cast list for Watchmen, but insists that this could well be an amalgam of rumours and fan wish fulfilment. But it puts some interesting other names into the ring, including Kate Winslet as Silk Spectre (good choice), Jeremy Irons as Moloch (woah! Works well though), Virginia Madsen as Sally Jupiter (too young again! But a great snag), William Fichtner as Detective Fine (ideal visual match, ie reeks of fanboy casting), and Noah Emmerich as Captain Metropolis (ditto, but would fanboys know him well enough?). Signs point to July’s San Diego Comicon for the final announcements.

- Jim Broadbent is in Indy 4, possibly in a Denholm Elliot-type role.

Will to live…dwindling…

John from Cincinnati

Rarely is a TV show the target of such mournful resentment as John from Cincinnati has been, since it is David Milch’s HBO follow-up series to the cancelled Deadwood. Despite numerous reports to the contrary, many fans of the Shakespearean Western are convinced that it would still be around if Milch had not pitched JFC and HBO had not eagerly picked it up. The truth – as attested by actors and crew – is quite different.

Milch allegedly pitched JFC with the understanding that he would have two shows at HBO. However, Deadwood’s demise had apparently been mooted for a while by executives, since it was by contractual necessity a co-production with Paramount, forcing HBO to watch chunks of the profits on a very expensive program with little re-selling potential go out the door. When the prospect of a new Milch show came up that was cheaper and all theirs, they jumped for it and canceled Deadwood. Actors have mentioned Milch’s fury when he informed them of their show's about-face execution. Not wanting both of his projects to die, he continued with JFC and managed to snag a deal to film two Deadwood TV movies to wrap up the story. But as JFC premiered, HBO had still offered no word on a project that was supposed to commence filming right about now. Incidentally, today is HBO’s leg of the TV Critics Press Tour, so expect angered Deadwood supporters to try and squeeze some information out. Whether we get any is a different question.

So with critics and Deadwood fans, John from Cincinnati had a speed bump to overcome, combined with the pressure of premiering immediately after the finale of HBO’s signature show, The Sopranos, along with the internal tumult of HBO CEO and original programming pioneer Chris Albrecht, responsible for The Sopranos and all that came after it - including Deadwood and JFC itself - being let go in May after a very public arrest for assault. Five episodes in, the ratings and critical response have been middling, and many observers are eating crow. However, myself and many others insisted on walking into John from Cincinnati with an open mind, to give these new actors and story a chance. After all, this is a new work from David Milch, whom Deadwood has unquestionably proven to be one of the all-time TV greats. Plus, the exhilarating HBO promos made this look like an irresistible, perhaps even Twin Peaks-style ride, in experiential if not popular terms.

The result was a little more muted than expected. JFC is a modern ensemble drama set in Imperial Beach, a town on the border of California and Mexico known for its polluted beaches and illegal immigrant incursions. Three generations of the Yost family live there, and either are accomplished surfers or were. Patriarch Mitch (Bruce Greenwood) was a surfing legend until a major knee injury stalled his career, and wife Cissy (Rebecca DeMornay) is bitter about what their life has become. To compensate, she cultivates grandson Shaun’s (Greyson Fletcher) huge surfing talent with the hope of having him signed against the objections of Mitch, who doesn’t want a repeat of what happened to their son Butchie (Brian Van Holt), whose professional surfing career capsized due to heroin addiction, which Butchie is still in the thrall of. Shaun lives with Mitch and Cissy, who fight over whether to welcome the advances of surfing promoter Linc Stark (Luke Perry), who Mitch blames for Butchie’s fall from grace. Meanwhile, Ramon Gaviota (Luis Guzman) runs the dingy motel where Butchie lives, but discovers that the oddly mannered Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston) has bought the land, having returned to Imperial Beach to confront a traumatic event in his past.

Into this miasma walks John (Austin Nichols), an intellectually disabled but oddly determined young man who intersperses endless repetitions of what others say with such strange proclamations as “Mitch Yost should get back in the game” and “See God, Kai”. The locals react with confusion to his presence but nonetheless extend an olive branch, seemingly content just knowing that he is from Cincinnati while wondering how on Earth he is so wealthy. He – or at least his arrival in town - also precipitates odd supernatural occurrences, such as visions of friends in pain or, most pointedly, Mitch suddenly levitating, which has provided HBO with its central promotional image.

It’s a thick and strange recipe, one that reveals labeling the show as a surfing drama is fairly wrongheaded. Surfing is merely the background, which, instead of forcing the show into a specialist niche, allows it to discuss our relationship with nature, functioning as a metaphor for trying to harness it without taming it. The characters are very aware of the contrast between their happiness and contentment riding the waves, free of the ground, and the complexities of their morose lives on shore, but it doesn’t allow them to figure out a solution. But just as the show hints it may go down the worn-down narrative path of the visionary talent who can’t get the rest of his life together, the show ducks and weaves over and over until John from Cincinnati’s ultimate purpose is a riddle. Unlike even surreal and baffling shows like Twin Peaks and Carnivale, there is very little to latch on to in this show in terms of a premise - it's not even portentous. It is as unknowable to us as the characters’ own lives are to them.

But that is not necessarily a bad thing. I will admit that episode five – the midway point of the season – became a chore at points because Milch’s steadfast refusal to even give us a peek at his hand was becoming frustrating. A narrative dedicated to mystery should not be judged by the speed and nature of the answers it gives, but the journey to them should still preferably not leave the viewer scratching their head as to why the questions are even there, or if they are there at all.

Taken scene by scene, JFC is still a rich experience. The high production values of Deadwood and all HBO shows are in full effect, with some beautiful camerawork, including unnerving grainy sequences for the visions that characters experience. Like Deadwood, this is quite a setbound show, and often feels even more like a stage play than its predecessor, with the same rich, Milchian dialogue rife with non-sequiturs that ultimately reveals its point at the end of an exchange rather than during it. But at times, Milch seems to still be in Deadwood mode, carrying that voice into a modern setting and the transition is not always comfortable. Whereas Deadwood’s lines worked their way up to the Shakespearean eloquence the series has become renowned for as the audience likewise became adjusted to its setting, John from Cincinnati lays it on too thick initially. Plus, the distance that a period piece automatically creates makes extravagant dialogue more plausible and the viewer can sink into the effect more naturally. These kinks may well even themselves out though.

Perhaps thanks to Deadwood’s renown, Milch has attracted a more star-studded cast for his sophomore HBO effort, but the performances are hit-and-miss, and perhaps through no fault of their own. Bruce Greenwood gives a very muted turn, which while welcome in Mitch’s calm, ‘wait-and-see’ attitude to his levitation, is preventing us from connecting with the figure that we are told towers over this status quo. The script do sideline him a little in these episodes, but since his levitation is one of the undeniable examples of how John has somehow changed things since his arrival, he will most likely be brought to the fore later in the season.

Rebecca DeMornay gives her best performance in a long time with her best role – it’s very emotionally bare and she rises to that. But in Cissy’s panicked protection of Shaun she’s only really been given one note to play: furious distress. Her anger recalls Robin Weigert’s Calamity Jane, but instead of her deep-seated but somehow amusing fury, Cissy’s is relentless and of-the-moment, so it grates a little.

Brian Van Holt moves past Butchie’s initially incessant obnoxiousness to find his twitchy vulnerability, and he’s certainly the most interesting and entertaining member of the Yost clan. The oft-described ‘Greek chorus’ at the motel is also one of JFC’s most promising components, particularly Matt Winston’s awkwardly elegant entrepreneur, although befitting their nickname they have remained permanently in the background in favour of the Yosts, who are over-exposed in proportion to how enjoyable their company has been. As motel manager Ramon, ubiquitous movie supporting player Luis Guzman is tragically wasted with some baffled mumbling that doesn’t properly exploit his talent. Ed O’Neill is sweetly compassionate as retired cop Bill Jacks, although his soliloquies to his birds are a painful reminder of a difficult conceit that Deadwood achieved so well but is less successful here, perhaps because the stakes are so much less apparent than when Ian McShane would be mulling his next course of action. Luke Perry fits in surprisingly well to this dysfunctional ensemble, and Deadwood vet Garret Dillahunt could end up the heart of the show as a shaken doctor who witnesses a miracle.

The acting newbies, professional surfers Greyson Fletcher and Keala Kennelly, are a mixed bag. Whereas Kennelly is very capable and holds her own, Fletcher hasn’t yet worked out how to make Shaun’s natural stoicism – perhaps also his own – appear to hide meaning as opposed to merely sounding wooden. Granted, he’s only a teenager doing his first acting, but in order for Milch to justify casting an amateur in a central role – the first five episodes largely centre on Shaun rather than the eponymous John – Fletcher will need to learn fast.

And then there’s John himself. Austin Nichols excels at occupying a strange area between overt mental disability and coy wisdom. John is almost impossible to read; even the words of others that he mimics could hold a revelatory or sinister import. Not centring the initial episodes on him is obviously the right call since John must be key to Milch’s larger ambitions, the first clue being right there in the title.

But that vision is largely inexplicable at this point, as virtually all critics have discussed and Milch no doubt revels in. At the midway point of the season, John from Cincinnati superficially seems to be an assemblage of scenes about a motley bunch of pained or eerily patient people, with the miracles that John and an unexpected other facilitate serving as triggers for contemplation or further anguish. As I hoped, Milch does far better at crafting credible responses to the apparent supernatural that are devoid of cliché than virtually every other TV narrative except Twin Peaks, a show that JFC initially resembled but now surpasses in thematic incomprehensibility, amazing as that seems.

Rather than exclamations of ‘my God’ and lengthy conversations of how crazy this all is, these characters are almost in denial that such events could have penetrated their depressingly earth-bound lives. It’s this freshness – along with faith that Milch has something up his sleeve (he’s talked about far grander themes than these episodes point to) – that will make me stick with JFC until season’s end, although the Yost-centric episode five was my first crisis of that faith – I nearly wanted to turn it off. It’s no Deadwood, as spoiled as that sounds, and it hasn’t yet had a coalescing event like Wild Bill’s pointless murder, which made that series click and become compulsively watchable.

But there is certainly ambition lurking inside. I just hope that it isn’t aimed even further into the recesses of Milch’s highly literate brain and instead out into the broader, existential, but very human mysteries that John from Cincinnati so clearly has on its mind.

News Retrospective, Part One

Well four months is a long time in the world of movie and TV news, so I thought I’d offer a blow-by-blow account of the major and not-so-major stories since March, with some of my patented asinine bullshit for good measure.

I began writing this thinking it would be a quick cursory exercise, but it soon turned into a mammoth endeavour that my perfectionism wouldn't let me bring to a halt despite the bleeding from my eyes. So, although this may revolt you in its thoroughness, I feel that my work needs to be seen in order for my horrendous injuries to be justified. Enjoy!

March (well, the stuff I didn’t cover in the real March)

- Zack Snyder reveals that he was talking to Tom Cruise about the role of Ozymandias in Watchmen, but that Cruise politely declined. While Cruise has the looks and charisma needed for this role, he just brings too much baggage. He could never really be Adrian Veidt.

- Daniel Radcliffe signs on for the final two Harry Potter movies. When the first film came out it seemed highly implausible that the cast would be kept together for seven movies. Six years later, in this age of the sequel and three-quel, it’s just a mild relief rather than a surprise.

- Director Joe Carnahan, in development on the fifth of James Ellroy’s LA crime novels, White Jazz, confirms that a separate L.A. Confidential 2 project is in the works, which would prevent him from using Guy Pearce’s Ed Exley character from that film and Pearce himself (assuming he would agree to reprise). It’s an especially egregious slight considering Carnahan was respecting movie continuity by keeping James Cromwell’s character dead when he played a major role in the novel, yet the project was very much striving to be its own entity – it would have been a refreshingly honest type of ‘sequel’. It even had – and still has – George Clooney attached as the lead. Still, leaving Exley out isn’t fatal, and it doesn’t look like L.A. Confidential 2 will beat White Jazz to theatres – hell, it may not even be made. And I wouldn’t complain in the slightest.
[For a sense of how nifty White Jazz could be, check out this photoshopped image that Joe Carnahan posted on his blog, indicating the fascinating visual style he’s going for. Scroll across for a glimpse of George doing his thing.]

- Variety confirms what webmasters had discovered weeks previously: Shia LeBeouf is in Indiana Jones 4. The studio is being coy about whether he’s playing Indy’s son though.

- Pixar announce that Toy Story 3 will be released in 2010. Although I don’t really need this movie, I’m eternally grateful that Pixar re-signed with Disney so that they could make it themselves, rather than audiences being inflicted with an in-house Disney production, as they threatened when Pixar was mulling a new alliance with another studio. John Lasseter has already announced that any sequels to Pixar films will be handled by Pixar themselves. Thank Christ.
And it’s funny how this is a rare case where a three-quel has to live up to the massive expectations set by the previous film fulfilling massive expectations as the follow-up to a hugely-loved first film. Fingers crossed. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are back BTW. I bet the latter wasn’t a hard sell. Poor guy…. Santa Clause 3 with Martin Short… yikes….

- Gerard Butler is to star as Snake Plissken in a remake of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. After 300, this guy had it all. Was opting for a remake a bad choice, or indicative of how little else there is on offer in Hollywood for a rising star? Bloody remakes!!!

- Bryan Singer’s next film will not be a Superman sequel, but a World War II thriller written by Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. The deal is with the latest incarnation of United Artists, inexplicably resurrected by Tom Cruise and his Cruise/Wagner production company. It’s since been revealed that Cruise will also be the lead in Valkyrie, playing Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Yep, Cruise as a German – I’m shuddering too. Also starring are Carice von Houten (from Paul Verhoeven’s recent homegrown comeback flick Black Book), Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Stephen Fry. Tom Wilkinson, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Eddie Izzard and Patrick Wilson – great cast, really. Oh, and it’s based on the July Plot, a real-life conspiracy to assassinate Hitler by German officers. Could be interesting. But Cruise as an actual German from history? Please no accent, PLEASE!

- Fernando Meirelles follow-up to The Constant Gardener is finally announced: an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness, about an inexplicable city-wide outbreak of blindness. Daniel Craig and Julianne Moore are in talks to star. However, Craig has since backed out, replaced by the far less stern and more vulnerable Mark Ruffalo – great choice.

- A while back, Warner Bros. put a Justice League movie into development, perhaps in response to Marvel’s announcement that their in-house movies like Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and the in-development Captain America and Thor will hopefully lead to an Avengers movie. If it gets made, it could be a catch-all flick for lesser DC heroes, or it could be a massive team-up movie featuring Batman and Superman, as seen in their solo flicks. Good idea? I can’t say at this point.
Anyway, rumours start to emerge that Warners will be putting a Superman sequel into turnaround and simply casting Brandon Routh in Justice League. After the disappointing critical and commercial response to Returns, this isn’t unfeasible. Since then, there have been conflicting reports about the sequel going ahead, even within the cast-iron Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Who the hell knows? But I very much doubt that Christian Bale would touch this with a 10-footer.

- We’re getting another Hayao Miyazaki film!!! Ponyo on a Cliff is announced for release in 2008. From Wikipedia and Variety:
“The plot centers on a goldfish princess named Ponyo who desperately wants to be a human. In pursuing her goal, she befriends a five-year-old human boy, Sōsuke. Work began on the film in 2006 [that explains the startling imminent release date]. The film will have an animation style heavily based on watercolours, a first for Miyazaki's films.”
Oh YEAH! And unlike Howl’s Moving Castle, this is an original story, straight from Miyazaki. And Sōsuke is based on his grandson, a personal touch that may make Ponyo even more whiplash-inducingly charming than his prior work.

- Emile Hirsch is cast as the lead in the Wachowski Brothers’ live-action version of 1960s anime Speed Racer. Interestingly, the film’s going to be rated G – not only are the Wachowskis making a family film this time, they’re doing so aggressively. It could be a great test of their range, or a dismal failure that proves that they really did lose the plot after the first Matrix. Hirsch is later joined by John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as Speed’s parents, Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox as villain Racer X (Jack may not get nearly as much Lost love as Sawyer, but Fox is doing a lot better in film than Josh Holloway – weird), Richard Roundtree, Friday Night Lights’s Scott Porter, and Hiroyuki Sanada (loves me some Sanada). Fantastic cast – the Wachowskis still have some love. V for Vendetta no doubt helped.

- Steven Spielberg taps Prestige and Dark Knight screenwriter Jonathan Nolan to write his wormhole SF project Interstellar. Good choice.

- Robert Rodriguez says he’s glad Johnny Depp couldn’t take the part of Jackie Boy in Sin City (ultimately taken by Benicio del Toro) because he thinks he’s perfect for Wallace in an adaptation of Hell and Back, which, being the longest Sin City yarn, would have to comprise a third film (the second will adapt A Dame to Kill For). He is, I agree, but since both Rodriguez and Miller now have a film apiece to make first, who knows when the first sequel will even get made?

- The Fountain director Darren Aronofsky signs to helm The Fighter, a boxing drama starring Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. This may well be a ‘for them’ movie, but if it bolsters his status in the biz, it could pave the way for other, personal, Fountain-esque projects, which is only a good thing.

- Radcliffe is followed by Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in signing for Potter 6 and 7, despite momentary panic that Watson would bail. Good stuff.

- Helen Mirren follows her Oscar for The Queen with National Treasure 2 – WHAT. THE. FRAK?

- After an Oscar nomination, Mark Wahlberg signs for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, despite several studios rejecting it, Lady in the Water failing miserably, and Shyamalan’s apparently ever-inflating ego. WTF, etc etc.

- After an Oscar, Jennifer Hudson signs for Rowan Woods’ Winged Creatures. However, this choice by a recent Oscar pick I do not disdain. Woods is a quality Australian director who also contributed many episodes of the delightful Farscape, and with the moderate critical success of Little Fish he has now snagged an American directing gig with a powerhouse cast. Sure, it’s yet another ensemble drama with a traumatic event serving as catalyst, but if the execution is great, I can forgive another trip to this well. Woods has also snagged fellow 2007 Oscar winner Forrest Whitaker, 2007 Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley, Guy Pearce, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Woods is doing well.

Sweet jesus, this is turning out far longer than I expected. Stupid comprehensive CHUD archives. Stupid interest in numerous different things.

April

- Heroes outrages surprisingly few by blatantly stealing from Watchmen for the revelation of Linderman’s plan (thank you to Devin Faraci at CHUD for alerting us to this in March when he saw preview clips at a Heroes event). While the method and ultimate outcome differed, the rationale and intended consequences were disgracefully similar. Hopefully Heroes’ limp conclusion in May puts the scenario out of people’s minds when watching Watchmen.
The New York Post followed up with a story on this after the episodes aired, but still not too many people minded. Fanboys must really, unconditionally, blindly love Heroes to overlook such plagiarism of a sacred text.

- In the announcement of Joe Penhall (Enduring Love) as writer of the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Road, Variety also confirms that John Hillcoat, director of the astonishing Aussie western The Proposition, will indeed be at the helm. Hillcoat is a perfect choice for McCarthy (the tone of The Proposition is wonderfully reminiscent of Blood Meridian), so this is a much-anticipated project.

- Friday Night Lights wins a Peabody Award, probably a more impressive accolade in the grand scheme of things than the Emmys ever could be. While the rest of FNL’s first season was a little disappointing in the soapy aspects that had very little social commentary value (Lyla Garrity shits me off), it’s still impressive TV. I don’t diss this award, but I don’t fully grasp it either.

- Tarantino and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse tanks at the box office, opening in third place with a mere $12 million, and word of mouth obviously doesn’t bring in more custom in subsequent weeks. Much is written about its failure, and, most heinously, international territories will receive expanded versions of the two films as separate releases, rendering the grindhouse experience – ie: the very point of the film – obliterated. What a shame. Oddly I don’t know if I can be arsed paying two ticket prices for these films, despite being pumped for Grindhouse. Maybe I feel subliminally ripped off to reject a new Tarantino.

- Blissfully, hallucinogenically creative comics writer Grant Morrison is announced as screenwriter of Area 51, an adaptation of the video game. If it’s made, this will be Morrison’s first produced film work, and if his vision emerges unscathed, will be a delightful smack-in-the-face to moviegoers with its rampant weirdness, and perhaps the very first decent video-game movie (although Hitman, with Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant in the lead, sounds kinda promising). Or it will be a massive waste of a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of talent and originality.

- Sin City may spawn a Rodriguez and Miller-sanctioned TV show. Hmmm……

- Woah! How did I miss this the first time?! After an eon complaining about Harrison Ford’s crappy movie choices, the potential redundancy of Indiana Jones 4, and his refusal to play anyone but a clear-cut hero (with a side order of grouchy), I find that he’s signed to play a corrupt border enforcement agent in Crossing Over, an immigration drama from Wayne Kramer (The Cooler, Running Scared). Wow, I’m shocked he’s actually making another movie apart from Indy, let alone one with actual creative promise. Come on Harrison, you can do it! I just hope he’s also changed his tune on Blade Runner for the upcoming re-release. He’s agreed to and already sat for interviews for the DVD, so maybe he’s come around to it at last. Ray Liotta, Cliff Curtis, and Ashley Judd also star, along with an uncharacteristically brief role for Sean Penn.

- In what is still one of the most gob-smacking announcements of the year, Edward Norton is announced as the lead in The Incredible Hulk, next year’s sequel/reboot of the franchise. Until this point, the Louis Leterrier-directed pic looked to be a glorified straight-to-video sequel, but the signing of Norton transformed all expectations. Sure, Norton hasn’t been in many pics over the last few years, but one got the impression that that was his choice rather than because of a dearth of offers. And he did have quite the word-of-mouth hit last year with the otherwise execrable The Illusionist, so Hulk was probably not a move made out of desperation.
Since then – and perhaps due to Norton signing on –Tim Roth, Liv Tyler, and William Hurt have joined the cast. It’s quite remarkable for a franchise to be restarted in such spectacular fashion a mere five years after the last attempt. The script apparently takes the Hulk’s origin as writ and tells a Fugitive-type story of Banner on the run, akin to the 70s TV-show but allegedly largely inspired by Bruce Jones’ eerie, skilful, but drawn out run on the comic a few years ago.

Ya know, if this film succeeds, I wouldn’t be surprised if Marvel has another crack at Daredevil, similarly ignoring the critically panned last film and starting afresh. Granted, the Hulk has a great deal more name recognition with the general public so the merchandising opportunities may have made a new film financially viable, whereas Daredevil has very little sway with the masses. That is, until the first film’s DVDs just kept on selling and selling for years in re-issues and reprintings, here in Australia at least. Maybe it wouldn’t be fruitless…. As uninspired a character as he may have seemed in the 2003 Ben Affleck starrer, the character actually has a very distinctive tone in the comics that could be well serviced on-screen. Mark Steven Johnson had his heart in the right place, but the execution completely failed to do the character justice. This is, after all, a superhero that Frank Miller crafted the definitive take on. And Hollywood sure does love him right now…

- David Mamet’s next film will be Redbelt, a look at the underground fighting scene in Los Angeles starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.

- Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard have signed for the Da Vinci Code prequel, Angels and Demons – oh PLEASE!

- Ridley Scott puts Child 44, about a secret police officer in Stalinist Russia into development, another addition to a truly mammoth slate for anyone, let alone a guy about to turn 70. After this year’s American Gangster, he also has Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio, and an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian in the offing, which for me seemed to come from nowhere about six months ago but apparently has a script by William Monahan ready and waiting. Yet as of the present day, it has no firm slot in Ridley’s schedule.
Will it happen? It’s been mooted for years, so who knows? I wonder if Ridley’s right for it? But then I can’t even reconcile Blade Runner’s moody awe with his recent style, as good as some of those films can be. If he can recapture that arch stylism, he could well do justice to Blood Meridian.

- Clive Owen signs for The International, Tom Tykwer’s American film debut.

- Michael Apted (the 7UP documentary series, The World is Not Enough, Amazing Grace) will direct The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third Narnia film. This series is getting Harry Potter-esque in its advance planning. I may be in the minority, but I think Prince Caspian is still a wild card in the box office department. Whereas Harry Potter has never really left the cultural conversation since the films began, Narnia has been little discussed since the first film came out. We shall see…

- Brad Pitt will join George Clooney in the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading. With these huge signings and the massive acclaim for No Country for Old Men at Cannes, it seems that the Coens are back in business, and I’m damn relieved. Burn is about a CIA agent whose memoirs are stolen by a man who believes he can blackmail him with the secrets it contains. An inauspicious concept, but the Coens and the cast (also including Frances McDormand) make this a must-see. Plus, the Coens are working for the first time in over a decade without cinematographer Roger Deakins. However, they’ve got one hell of a replacement with Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men, The New World).

- JJ Abrams confirms the worst-kept secret in a long time: his Star Trek film does indeed feature Captain Kirk.

- Robbie Coltrane and Maximilian Schell join Rian “Brick” Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom, adding to an already astonishing cast comprising Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, and Rinko Kikuchi. It’s interesting how Johnson has got his second script up-and-running with little trouble soon after his debut with a stellar cast, yet Richard Kelly endured endless strife to get his second effort filmed, and that strife has continued long after filming concluded. Poor guy….

- Sam Mendes is making a Middlemarch film. Given the astounding intricacy of that novel, all I can say is ‘good luck’.

- Chow Yun-Fat follows Tony Leung Chiu-Wai’s lead and departs John Woo’s ancient Chinese epic, The Battle of Red Cliff. Shortly thereafter, Leung returns, possibly to take Chow’s role, since Takeshi Kaneshiro took his original one. Tumultuous is the word.

- Very convincing photoshopped ‘test’ shots of Heath Ledger as the Joker appear online. The craving to see what Ledger will look like is insatiable, which is odd given that we know what the Joker basically looks like. Yet I was as hungry to see the final design as everyone else. Quite unfathomable really. We fanboys are a funny lot.

- Wow, yet more Coens news. They have the project-after-next sewn up too. Called A Serious Man and dubbed “a dark comedy in the vein of Fargo”, the flick is set up at Focus Features. Is there no stopping these men now?

- Ubiquitous comics-to-film guy David S. Goyer is announced as the director of the Magneto spin-off. Should it be made, of course.

- Frank Langella is confirmed to reprise his stage role as Richard Nixon in Ron Howard’s movie version of Frost/Nixon, about the revealing televised interview with Tricky Dicky conducted by David Frost in 1977. Michael Sheen plays Frost, and Langella only secures the role he originated after Warren Beatty (?!) turned Howard down. Beatty would have a hell of a star persona to overcome in order to play a major historical figure, but he has a knack anyway for turning down big, attention-grabbing roles after similarly rejecting Tarantino for the David Carradine role in Kill Bill. He would have been absolutely dynamite in that, but Carradine was tremendous too so I’m not complaining. And why oh why has Carradine’s career returned to shit (cf: Epic Movie) after such a great, revitalising role? What a world.

- Joanna Cassidy announces on her website that she is shooting new material for the Blade Runner: The Final Cut DVD. Cue much fanboy panicking about Scott messing with a classic, Lucas-style. Thankfully, the reshoots are later revealed as merely an endeavour to cover up two shots that should have looked like Cassidy but clearly weren’t, with the goal to make the overlay as seamless as possible. No complaints here. Perhaps Zhora’s death will be more powerful now that we can clearly see Cassidy throughout the sequence instead of a stuntwoman in a bad wig.

- Darren Aronofsky wants to make a Biblical epic about Noah.

- Ridley Scott will direct Nottingham, a Bizarro Robin Hood tale where the Sheriff is the hero, to which Russell Crowe was already attached. These guys just love each other, don’t they?

My god, this is masochism, it really is. Yet it’s also so weirdly fun….